When developing an ability to assert arbitrary propositions as knowledge it’s necessary to have at least extraordinary courage, if not fearlessness. It is well known that one way to develop courage is by deliberately subjecting oneself to difficult experiences. Asceticism is a practice in that vein, but challenges don’t have to be in the form of body denial or conventional personality denial as in the typical ascentic practices. Anything that puts one outside the comfort zone is a challenge.

For a thoroughgoing subjective idealist such challenges can at times be really outlandish, unreasonable and mad in order to be effective, because a more “usual” sort of challenge is just not necessarily going to be felt as a meaingful or interesting challenge. Plus, in order for a challenge to be effective at liberating one from rigid conventional habits it has to be intimately conceived. If one seeks freedom one must only undertake challenges of one’s own design and refuse all other challenges as meaningless. That way one can take conscious responsibility for the challenge as well as understand the ins and outs of why this or that area of personal sensitivity must be faced head on in some case that’s particular to one’s subjective state. That way a challenge will fit neatly into one’s own unique manner of development and it will correspond to one’s personality in a way that’s authentic.

Plus, I don’t hear about many spiritually liberated people who are good at hitting the boss’ deadlines. So rising to other people’s challenges is something I consider a total waste of one’s time and I don’t recommend it. If ever the word gets around, you might have a line of trolls coming your way with all kinds of challenges for you. Plus, rising to other people’s challenges is generally done with the desire to satisfy those people’s expectations rather than one’s own. But it is yourself that you have to convince of your capability and no one else.

Consider how this or that challenge would fit into your plan to liberate yourself from convention.

But there is a problem with challenges. The problem is that challenges don’t prove anything, even to yourself. After all, if you rise to the occasion once, maybe it was a fluke right? So maybe you have to do it twice. But then again, two times might have been a fluke, so three times is better. But wait, those three times don’t count because you were young and strong. Now that you’re older you have to do it again to see if you can still do it when older. And so on. In other words, if one wants to doubt oneself, the possibility for a doubting narrative is always there!

That’s why challenging oneself can easily become a trap of perpetual insecurity where one constantly feels the need to overcome this, that, and the other, to repeatedly prove to oneself one’s own greatness. One might even come up with a slogan for this hapless attitude, “I’m only as good as my last challenge!” Maybe it will sound familiar.

Someone wise in the way of subjective idealism will recognize this trap.

The goal then is not to prove anything. The goal is to learn how to rest in the knowledge of capability, no matter what. It is that state of knowing that’s the goal. Because ultimately such knowing cannot be justified by anything, it is essentially madness. So trying to attain such a state through a means that’s entirely reasonable is not likely to work.

What I find works best is to rise to this or that challenge on occasion, but to do so sparingly, and to know that one’s state of confidence and capability cannot be earned or proven. It cannot be proven to others, and it cannot be proven even to oneself. Rather, the knowing of capability is simply assumed without anyone’s approval or permission. Once assumed one then commits to living in line with that knowing. And that’s all there is to it.

Of course one major reason why such a tactic can work is precisely because of subjective idealism. So if you understand what makes subjective idealism true, you’re not going to be entirely unreasonable in your madness. Then you might only appear unreasonable from the POV of convention.